10/17/07 - -- WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The price of
an Iraqi life, for purposes of compensation for
the families of civilians killed by Americans,
can be as low as $500 and as high as $8 million.
It depends on who does the assessment.

On the low end, $500 was paid to the brother of
a man caught in a firefight outside the gate of
his house.

The $8 million is what the Iraqi government
is demanding for the families of each of the 17
people it said were killed when private security
contractors guarding U.S. diplomats opened fire
in a crowded Baghdad square on September 16.

In between those poles, payments are frequently
in the $3,000 to $5,000 range. High-profile
victims whose death might have an impact on
U.S.-Iraqi relations command more.

He was shot dead last Christmas Eve by a drunken
contractor of the U.S. private security company
Blackwater, whose men were also involved in the
September shooting. The incident raised fresh
questions over the use of civilians in roles
previously carried out by the U.S. military.

One of the most remarkable quotes from a U.S.
official on conditions in Iraq, five years into
the war, has come in an email discussing the
size of compensation for the bodyguard.

Made available during a Congressional hearing
early in October, the email said:

"The...Charge d'Affaires (acting ambassador)
was talking some crazy sums at first.
Originally, she mentioned $250k and then later
on $100K...I think that a sum this high will set
a terrible precedent.

"This could cause incidents with people trying
to get killed by our guys to financially
guarantee their family's future."

SUICIDE-BY-AMERICAN?

Excuse me? Suicide by provoking an American to
shoot you?

Is there so little prospect, so little hope,
so little confidence in the future, so few
opportunities that the only way to provide
long-term for a family's future is through a
U.S. compensation payment for your death?

The email was sent by a Special Agent of the
Diplomatic Security Service in Baghdad after he
discussed the matter of the dead bodyguard with
the Army's Criminal Investigation Command.

The desperation suggested in the notion of
suicide-by-American is at odds with the official
view of the Bush administration, which has been
seeing slow but steady progress towards
stability and reasons for Iraqis to hope for a
brighter future.

In the case of the bodyguard, the State
Department, for whom Blackwater works under a
$600 million-plus contract, eventually suggested
$15,000 but according to Blackwater's chief
executive, Erik Prince, the company actually
paid $20,000.

Now, the widow wants more.

CONDOLENCE AND COMPENSATION

There is no structured procedure for making
claims in cases involving armed American
civilians.

No court, either in Iraq or in the U.S., has
dealt with an Iraqi national seeking
compensation for death from a U.S. private
security contractor. The companies operate in a
legal no-man's land where they have been
virtually immune from prosecution.

The U.S. military, in contrast, have dealt
with compensation claims for more than half a
century, under a 1942 law, the Foreign Claims
Act.

It distinguishes between condolence payments,
paid without recognition of fault "as an
expression of sympathy and good will" and
compensation, which acknowledges military
wrongdoing. The $500 for the man shot outside
his house was a condolence payment. (Such
payments are usually limited to $2,500).

But even for outright compensation, the sums
are modest by Western standards, according to
documentation on hundreds of cases from Iraq and
Afghanistan the U.S. Army released to the
American Civil Liberties Union recently.

One document lists $5,000 paid for a wrongful
death and $5,200 for damage to the vehicle
involved in the incident that caused the death.
A human life worth less than a car.

"Iraqi blood has become the cheapest thing in
Iraq," noted a representative of Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani, the country's most respected
Shiite religious leader.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants the price
of Iraqi blood reviewed. The $8 million per
person his government is demanding for the
Blackwater victims dwarfs the "crazy sums" the
Baghdad diplomat had suggested for settling the
bodyguard case.

But the new demand is likely to go through
the same process of severe shrinkage as the old.

If not, to follow the logic of the Baghdad
email, there might be yet another complication
in an already complex and dirty war -- soldiers
and contractors having to learn to spot Iraqi
family fathers wishing to die for U.S.
compensation.

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